Published 7:19 pm, Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Photo: The Associated Press — Republican-American, Jim Shannon

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In this July 26, 2012, photo, Paul Rogers, right, leaves federal court in New Haven after a hearing about his role in funneling illegal campaign donations to former House Speaker Chris Donovan’s former campaign manager. less

In this July 26, 2012, photo, Paul Rogers, right, leaves federal court in New Haven after a hearing about his role in funneling illegal campaign donations to former House Speaker Chris Donovan’s former ... more

Another session of the Connecticut General Assembly wraps up on Wednesday, and legislators have debated everything from genetically modified grass seed to horse caretaking.

The topic you won’t find on either party’s agenda, once again, is the ethics of the General Assembly’s own members or the transparency of the legislative process.

Two years ago, a top aide to former Speaker of the House Chris Donovan was charged with conspiring to kill legislation in exchange for illegal campaign donations to Donovan’s bid for Connecticut’s 5th District U.S. Congress seat.

House Majority Leader Joe Aresimowicz was caught on tape discussing the donations and the promise of more if the legislation could be killed, and the FBI obtained a text message from him that said: “Then we will fix it when Chris lets me know.”

A union leader cooperating with the FBI attempted to put cash in the refrigerator of House Minority Leader Larry Cafero’s office. Cafero stopped him, and suggested that one of his staff members “clock out” and walk down the street and accept a check instead of cash so that the money-for-influence process could happen without technically violating the law.

The FBI was back at the Capitol this year to investigate Republican legislators’ and staffers’ connections to a campaign mailing contractor, which quickly led to the resignation of the House Republicans’ chief of staff.

Neither party has offered legislation, or rule changes, that might prevent this kind of corruption. No one wants to talk about it. Legislators from both parties were furious when gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley talked about ethics reform earlier this year, and mocked him.

Donovan’s staff, and the one Cafero wanted to walk down the street, shuttle back and forth between influential legislative jobs and political campaigns, and lines get blurred. The scary thing about the Donovan scandal two years ago is that leaders of the General Assembly, and a handful of powerful staffers who work for them (and, wink, wink, separately, for their political campaigns) can do what Donovan’s people were doing, with impunity.

We’ve seen year after year that in the waning days of a legislative session, anything can happen. Legislation backed by a large majority of legislators and passed handily in one body of the General Assembly might not even come up for a vote in the other. Legislation bypassing public hearings and practically every other form of reasonable review by the media and even rank-and-file members can pop up and be rammed through. Millions of dollars of taxpayer money can be slipped into, or removed from, a budget line.

The respective top party leaders of the Connecticut House and Senate have tremendous power over this process. They will talk about Supreme Court decisions and Super PACs as the biggest contributor of corruption in the system, but will not talk about how their own process invites it.

What would the extra financial benefit of being in leadership be if their power base was eroded, and how could they control rank-and-file legislators if the ability to get legislation passed for their district was no longer at their whim?

A few simple reforms could democratize our legislative process and make it a lot more difficult for the Donovan scandal to repeat itself. For example: Require super-majority votes to waive the normal public hearing and review procedure on any piece of legislation. Allow any member to move a piece of legislation onto the agenda before the end of the session with a super-majority vote. Require stronger public notice on the language of last-minute legislation.

We’d love to see some reform-minded candidates run for office this year with these kinds of proposals.